Belmont Shore dream runs afoul of Long Beach bureaucracy

A 42-year-old single mother of two young daughters with an entrepreneurial spirit, Christine Hsu spotted the empty building at 5373 East Second Street early last year that once was an It's A Grind outlet and was immediately smitten.

"Absolutely loved the location," she says. "It was perfect for what I was looking to do."

And what Hsu was looking to do was open her own Chinese restaurant, as each of her three older sisters had done in the past.

She knew Belmont Shore was in need of such a place, and she says she invested what was left of her lifetime savings — $250,000 — into her dream spot that she would call Me Soo Hungry.

With a catchy name, a pleasing ambiance of modernity and cleanliness, and appetizing dishes that have resulted in a dedicated clientele, you'd think Hsu would be reaping profits from her 13-table establishment.

Instead, her dream spot has turned into a nightmare.

"I'm maxed out on all my credit cards to meet the daily bills, and I'm now seriously considering filing bankruptcy," she says sadly. "I've been to the hospital emergency room a couple of times from stress, suffering anxiety attacks. It's been tough."

She says her financial problems are a result of having to operate at a competitive disadvantage for an inordinate amount of time, as the ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) beer and wine license she applied for in November when she opened Me Soo Hungry wasn't granted until mid May — and only on a temporary basis.

"Definitely, that long wait hurt our business badly," she says.

"And it all came about because one couple down the block complained to the ABC. One couple! I wasn't exactly opening a cocktail lounge.

"All I wanted was for our customers to have the opportunity to have beer or wine with their meals, which I think is quite normal."

Actually, Hsu had originally applied for the ABC license in September.

But that request went nowhere because, at the behest of that activist guardian of Belmont Shore temperance, 3rd District Councilman Gary DeLong, it wound up being protested unanimously by the Long Beach City Council.

One thing you can say about the brave and independent souls that comprise the Long Beach City Council, they march in lockstep with one another!

A while later after receiving favorable emails and telephone calls on behalf of Hsu and her new enterprise, DeLong had the City Council rescind its protest and give its support to her latest ABC application albeit with all sorts of silly conditions.

No Happy Hour, TVs

Among other nit-picking attachments affixed to Hsu's license — no Happy Hour, no beer or wine advertising on her front window, no noise beyond 50 feet of the building, ad nauseam — Hsu is banned from having a television in her establishment.

I mean, seriously folks, would a flat screen suddenly transform the quaint little place into a raucous sports bar hangout?

You hear complaints all the time from local business people complaints about the anti-business climate that pervades — many say pollutes — Long Beach among its politicians and civil servants.

Well, what Christine Hsu has endured the past nine months is a microcosm of this dark phenomenon.

The outspoken co-owner of the Acapulco Inn, Tim Moriarty, says he squandered thousands of dollars to appease DeLong over the color scheme advocated for his newly opened patio last year — and wound up with almost the identical brown hue he originally desired after prolonged and costly haggling.

Before opening DOGZ on Second Street, Norm Turley says he redid a neon sign to placate DeLong that had "cocktail" on it — what a provocative word to appear in tavern signage — and made it "Hot Dogz"

"I was told we'd have to wait three to five weeks to get approval from the planning commission even though the sign was exactly the same size as it had been for 20 years and also was told a new permit for it would cost $1,400," says Turley, who has still not hung the new sign.

I was at Turley's place a week before he opened, and a Long Beach building inspector, reeking of appalling arrogance that that would make Barry Bonds come off as humble in comparison, walked imperially around the place with a Dirty Harry Make My Day strut.

Gene Rotondo recently announced he was selling Legends because of his repeated disagreements with DeLong.

Reacting to constituents

"I'm just doing what I've been elected to do, and I react to complaints from my constituents," is DeLong's standard rejoinder to the growing chorus of complaints swirling in his orbit.

According to Christine Hsu, DeLong and his family have dined at least twice at her place — and savored the food.

"Gary seems like a nice man," says Hsu, who's an extremely nice woman who came to America at age 8 with her father and sisters from Taipei, Taiwan.

She grew up in Monterey Park, married her high school sweetheart, attended Santa Monica City College, earned six-figure annual salaries as a car agency financial manager for several years, and then became a full-time housewife after giving birth to her daughters, Amanda, now 12, and Heather, 8.

In 2004 in Arcadia, she opened Kids Island, an indoor playground for kids, sold it a few years later, and decided early last year to follow in the restaurant footsteps of her siblings, one of whom operates Caesar's Mongolian Barbecue in Cerritos and another of whom had the old Panda Panda in Roosmoor.

"I figured if my sisters could do it, I could do it better," she says. "I'm a believer in serving nothing but fresh food, and I go out and get fresh vegetables every day. I think the presentation is important in Chinese food, and, of course, you always have to give the customers first-class service."

Hsu has not stopped toiling since opening her restaurant on Nov. 2.

"I've cooked, waited on customers, bused dishes, cleaned the toilets, done the books, resolved the complaints and done everything else imaginable," says Hsu, who employs four waitresses and three cooks in her place, is open 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11:30-10 Friday and Saturday.

"We're closed on Mondays," says Hsu, who last week moved from Arcadia to Long Beach with her daughters to be closer to her business.

How much longer will Me Soo Hungry — she says she came up with the name from listening to child chatter at her Kids Island establishment — remain open?

"Hopefully, for a long time," says Hsu. "The good news is that I've gone from losing $7,000 a month to almost breaking even.

"But still, I have a lot of bills to pay. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to start off on the same playing field like other restaurants like mine routinely do."